By the way, the Boston Bruins actually practiced today at Ristuccia Arena in Wilmington while everyone’s eyes were glued to the trade deadline.

And there was some big news, as winger Milan Lucic, out since last Thursday with an upper-body injury, declared himself ready to return to action. Head coach Claude Julien was only willing to commit to the notion that Lucic is a possibility to play against Phoenix tomorrow night, but the day-to-day forward said he expects to play.

As for what set off Lucic and made him pummel Anaheim’s Mike Brown in a one-sided fight that’s widely believed to have been when Lucic suffered his injury, Lucic offered this take:

“I just drove the net and … as I recall and as I look at the replays and stuff, I did everything I could to try to get out of the goalie’s way. I didn’t even touch the goalie at all. Three of them came up to me and next thing I knew, Brown dropped his gloves. He hit me right in the face. If there’s a fight or what not, obviously there’s that ‘code’ that everyone talks about: when a guy is down, you don’t do something like that. When you’re down 3-0 and you want to send a message, I don’t think jumping someone or doing something like that is a good way to go about it.”

“If they asked, I would’ve been more than willing to participate in the aftermath,” he concluded. “But that’s just what happened.”